


Five Ways Pam and Jim Didn't Get Together

by sophiahelix



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: F/M, five things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-05
Updated: 2006-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When she looks up again, about to point out a constellation over the lake or say something, anything, to break the silence, he kisses her."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Ways Pam and Jim Didn't Get Together

When she looks up again, about to point out a constellation over the lake or say something, anything, to break the silence, he kisses her. The boat lurches under her feet at that instant and she has to grab onto his elbows to steady herself, and somehow that turns into her sliding her hands up to his shoulders, underneath his coat, and his nose is cold pressed against her cheek but she hardly notices. Her stomach rolls and jumps like she's been drinking, except she hasn't been, and she just keeps kissing him back, like she's never going to stop, like she doesn't even care that anyone could come out on deck and see them. Maybe she wants them to.

He's the one who breaks it, turning away to catch his breath, and she feels him smile against her temple. He whispers something into her hair, soft and warm, and she whispers back. In just a few moments, they've said it all.

***

She breaks up with Roy a few days after she starts her new job, partly over a pair of red satin panties she finds in the truck and partly because she's just tired of the whole thing. She means to stay single for a while, but the cute guy at work who she's had a mild crush on asks her out after a couple of weeks and she really likes him so she says yes.

The relationship feels totally different. They have a great time hanging out together, and they actually go places and do things on the weekends, because he has lots of friends who have lots of parties. He likes the same kinds of movies and books she does, and he introduces her to a bunch of music she hasn't heard. After a year he still hasn't told her he loves her, which makes her a little worried, but she says it in bed on Valentine's Day and after a pause he says it back. She keeps a lot of her things at his place, but she doesn't move in. He says it's good for her to maintain her independence and she agrees, although it's a pain going back and forth and trying to remember where she left her hairdryer.

They don't really socialize too much at work; since they're together so much for the rest of the day that she thinks they probably need the space. He's pretty good at his job, although she finds herself getting more bored with hers by the day. Eventually she applies for and gets a job doing layout and headlines for the local paper, which isn't all that exciting and sometimes has weird hours, but at least she doesn't have to answer phones. She thinks maybe they'll spend more time together now that they're not working at the same place, but it's about the same as always, two or three times during the week and a standing date on Saturday nights.

She picks him up from work sometimes, and he's usually hanging over her old desk, chatting with her replacement. The girl is really young, barely out of college, and she knows it's stupid to be jealous. He just likes women. When they go to his friends' parties, less frequently now, he always ends up talking about politics or television shows or something goofy with a girl or three, and it doesn't really bother her, even when they're younger and hotter than her. She can't blame the girls either. He's charming and good-looking, and she knows better than anyone that when he's talking to you he can make you feel like the only person in the world.

Still. It's sad that she's losing his interest after only two years. If she were a movie heroine it would galvanize her to work out and get a makeover and win him back, but she doesn't think she's changed all that much since they met. He's just always on the lookout for the next unattainable thing, like most guys.

Every so often she wonders if things might have been different if she'd made him wait, or if she'd stuck with Roy for a while and been unavailable instead of jumping at the chance to go out with him. The first stages of their relationship were great, as they got to know each other and found out how much they had in common, but maybe it was just too much too soon.

When she finally breaks up with him it's as much about saving her dignity as about giving him his freedom. She's pretty sure he'd never cheat, because he isn't that kind of guy, but she doesn't want to wait to find out. He's sad but honest about it, and she never quite figures out exactly what went wrong.

***

She asks him for a ride home after the Dundies. They both know she always asks Angela. They both know she's had too much to drink. She gets into the car anyhow, and he takes her halfway there before she grabs his arm and makes him pull into the Wendy's drive-through so she can get a Frosty because she's still on a sugar high.

They sit in the parking lot while she eats it, spooning it up because it's too thick to get through a straw. He smirks and points at a spot near her mouth, and she sticks her tongue out, trying to lick away the ice cream. She keeps missing, and it makes him laugh, so she does it again, being ridiculous just for him.

"You do it," she says finally, pouting because she's drunk enough that she can.

He holds out a napkin. She shakes her head and leans in.

She can see him hitch in a breath, in the dim yellow light, and he looks away from her and down at the steering wheel, eyes wide. She reaches down to pick up his right hand, by the index finger, and pulls it unresisting against the wet spot on her cheek. He finally looks at her when she sucks on his finger, tasting the chocolate and the salt of his skin beneath.

"You're really drunk," he says, shaking his head and pulling his hand away.

"I know," she says. "But it's OK."

She kisses him, fast, before he can stop her. He doesn't kiss her back, and the feeling of his lips slack against hers is awful. She leans away and pouts again.

He's breathing faster now, hurt in his eyes. "Stop it," he says. "You're not funny."

"I'm not trying to be funny."

" _Pam_ ," he says, a roughness in his voice. "I think I'd better take you home. Now."

He reaches for the ignition and she puts her hand on his. She takes a deep breath, trying to find the words to make him understand.

"I had to get drunk for this," she said, her voice sounding flat and far away. "I had -- tonight I knew -- "

He's just looking at her. She thinks their faces are really close, which is funny, because she's drunk and can't hold her head up straight. A big smile breaks out over her face.

"It's not a game, I know. Or, if it is, um, you win."

He gives her a look like he can't quite believe what she just said, and she kisses him again. He kisses her back this time, one big hand sliding under her hair to rest warm against her neck, the other at her waist, and they stay in the car for a long time. She knows everything will be horrible when she gets home, but that's only for a little while, and after that things will be good again.

***

Roy breaks off their engagement after a year. It's not really a surprise by that point, since he's cancelled every wedding plan she's made and been on a three-day drinking binge with his brother and his friends, but when she sits in the apartment by herself after he leaves it still feels very, very empty.

Getting un-engaged is easy, but still embarrassing. She returns most of the gifts from the shower, stuff like the espresso machine that's been sitting unopened in the closet and the heirloom gravy boat her grandmother had sent from Boston. The place on her finger where her ring was is pale and pressed down, but after a few weeks the skin looks normal again, like she never wore anything there at all. Her mom says she's entitled to keep the ring since he broke it off, but she doesn't want to have it around and selling it seems tacky, so she just seals it up in a padded envelope at work and mails it to his mom's address.

Jim starts having dinner with her every night. At first it was an accident, because they were both working overtime and the vending machine was broken, but eventually it turns into a regular thing. She can't really afford to eat out so often, and her diet can't really afford it either, so they go to buffet places with salad bars and the all-you-can-eat sushi place downtown, and only sometimes to the diners he likes with big, drippy burgers and thick steak fries.

They start going to the movies sometimes too, and then to bookstores and cafes afterwards, and her apartment is a mess and she needs to buy groceries and get an oil change and look into finding a new place that's cheaper, but it's so much easier to climb into Jim's messy car and spend the evening together than to go home and face the emptiness by herself.

One warm July night they drive all the way up to the lake and back, and they talk about dreams and what they wanted to be when they were kids and whether they want kids and it's weird, at the end of the night, when he doesn't kiss her.

It happens a week later, though, standing in the brightly-lit travel section of Borders, when she's smiling up at him as he reads useful phrases out of a guide to Mongolia. She thinks neither of them knows how it happens, but they're kissing, and he's still holding the guidebook crushed against her and she's got her hands on his face, and a couple of punky teens whistle behind them. They break apart, and he bows and smiles, and that's pretty much that.

They keep it secret for exactly ten days, until Dwight sees them getting out of the same car in the morning and announces it to everyone. No one really cares, as it turns out, and even Roy gives her a kind of half-smile when he sees her later in the day. She just wishes she'd known years ago how easy everything could be.

***

She follows him, down the stairs and out to the parking lot, into his car. She doesn't even know where he's going. She feels like it's the end of _The Graduate_ , and they're riding away on the bus, and it doesn't even matter where to, because just the fact that they're going is enough. She thinks, wildly, that her blue dress is pretty enough for a wedding gown anyhow.

He just keeps driving, headlights slicing into the night, and something is playing on the car radio that she doesn't recognize but it makes her heart beat fast, in time with the guitar. He keeps looking over at her and smiling, and she smiles back, and she's dizzy and scared but his hand on her knee is real, maybe realer than anything she's known.


End file.
